Local environmental impacts

Aluminum smelters, hydroelectric power stations and transmission lines like other industrial plants impact their surroundings. Furthermore there are differences between temporary impacts during the construction phase and the continued impacts in the operation phase.

Back in 2006 when the aluminum project was started the knowledge of aluminum industry was very limited in Greenland. Therefore one of the first things to be done was acquiring knowledge of the different environmental effects that a project with several hydroelectric power stations and an aluminum smelter might have. 

The National Environmental Research Institute in Denmark worked out a screening report in February 2007 which can be retrieved here. The report pointed out a line of specific conditions that the society should be aware of concerning the proposed project and what known impacts an aluminum smelter might have. 

The specific impacts could be the altering of streams, chemical compounds and physical impacts as noise and like. Also traffic, effects on the community and other new conditions might be the more indirect impacts from newly established industry. 

Before it is possible to know the consequences of these impacts you must first acquire the knowledge of certain factors and what conditions to compare with. In other words: How are the surroundings today without the proposed project? Not until having the knowledge of this starting point, called the baseline, is it possible to work out a report suggesting the possible impacts of the project on the surroundings and what can be done to diminish the possible negative effects. This knowledge is accomplished through a fixed process that will be concluded with a report of the Environmental Impact Assessment (the EIA). 

The report will be put out for public hearing before it is submitted to the authorities for final approval. 

It will continuously be supervised that the project in Greenland comply with acceptable and non-harmful limits for emissions and in the overall follow the given guidelines for the environmental approval of the project. This is described in more detail in the baseline studies (Terms of Reference) which can be found under the section about EIA.